One hit kill/no damage improvements

I've been developing the idea of a one hit kill/no damage system for a long time, and found it to be very effective at simulating real combat (units might be killed instantly, or battle on for the whole battle unscathed). Of course, special units such as heroes and large beasts are treated differently, with a 'normal' level of health.

The system works using low hp values, such as 25/50 for each normal troop, and then varying amounts of damage for each unit, around about that value, and varying armour (based on hardened skin, with varying % chance to decrease an attack by a certain amount). Most spells are also triggered to have a chance of killing.

Morale is something that I'm trying to come up with an idea for, and also tiredness, and flanking. Also, I'm trying to come up with a method of making having small garrisons at key points an effective method, rather than a mass attack with all units being the only viable stategy.

Any ideas?

using triggers would make that much easier.But im not good on triggers so dont ask me

The problem is using triggers that won't lag massively, and because some things are very difficult to do. For example, flanking. If the flanked column of units is quite thick, it would still be suffering from being flanked, but detecting that is very difficult. At the moment I'm not using any triggers, except for abilities, and as much as possible I want to keep it that way.

Moral could be done by using auras, but then either they'd be global, or they'd be night on impossible to decide whether one group has high moral, and another, quite close, does not.

What type of map is this? Or are you just wondering about what you should do?

At the moment, I've already made a few maps using this system (my Battle for Minas Tirith map in the beta testing section uses a version of this, but it's a fairly old version, and there are somethings with the damage that I'd do differently), but at the moment I'm in the process of making a medhieval-era sort of map, with several castle fighting over the towns and key resources in the map (also including a supply system, whereby units within a supply line fight better than those outside).

using terrain, make it so the garrisons will be better to defend with ranged than just massing melee, also for tiredness use mana

Why can't you just detect unit's relative facing and increase damage from side/back attacks?

If you just keep it simple like that, it will work fine. Trust me :)

is that what flanking means?, cause that is really easy to do, infact even dota has it

Not really. That would only count if a unit was being attacked from both sides, but real flanking involves not getting behind one soldier, but surrounding a group.

Wow sounds like a really good idea, I hope you release it public if you get it working

I already have an almost finished map (just with a few bugs, like reincarnation, that I need to iron out) using this system, in the map projects - beta tests section (battle for minas tirith).

The medhieval era map should be in a semi-working state sometime. Maybe I'll get it done over half term.

Okay, time to get philosophical :)

Ever saw a flock of birds fly?

They seem to fly together in perfect coordination. They keep patterns and ranks and never bump in each other. Its almost as if they practiced flying together for every possible flying pattern beforehand. Simultaneous movement of 100 small birds seems to be incredibly complex system.

All of the time, birds show no sign of any kind of relevant communication. This has baffled biologists for some decades. Some actually went as far as suggesting that birds have some limited sort of telepathic abilities.

The reality came out when a computer scientist, who was interested in biology, decided to emulate a flock of birds.
He created "bird" objects, which were essentially small spheres in 3D space. Then he created a simple rule for their interaction - every single bird was to stay within fixed range of other birds, moving closer if it was too far, and moving farther if it was too close.
Then he designated one bird as a leader, making it move randomly.

To his surprise, that incredibly simple ruleset emulated the complex system of bird movement perfectly, and is now the official theory on how a flock of birds organises itself.

The lesson to be learned here is that every seemingly complex system is, in the end, governed by a set of very simple rules (though there may be a lot of them).

So that's why i suggest you try and implement a simple rule first and see how it works out. Who knows, you may actually get the result you need on the first try :)

If you don't then just another simple rule and try again.

With all that being said, i believe increased damage from sides/behind is the most basic rule of the system you are trying to create, regardless of however many units are interacting at any given moment. So i would start with that rule and work from there ^^

I'm trying to simulate the breakdown of command, control and communication caused when a group of soldiers are partially (or totally) enveloped. What you seem to be thinking of is getting directly behind, but that isn't what a flank normally is (if that case happens, then the units in the middle would be massively outnumbered anyway, and have 2 swords to their one, giving a massive advantage to the troops that are surrounding them anyway).

then u can do a pick all units surrounding attacked unit within radius on attack

Couldnt you do some form of buff on attack ability.
Give it a very low duration like 1 second and make it stack.

If that unit gets 3 of those buffs at a given time, make it take extra damage.
- more and more damage per buff.

This would only happen if he got ganged. Could make it so only melee attackers have this buff ability

If any if this is possible :-)